This disclosure relates to system control design, and more particularly to model based predictive control and power management for mechanical systems.
Complex engineered systems including such things as vehicles, gas turbine engines, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are coupled dynamic systems where response of one component may interact unfavorably with another component within the same system. This interaction can be managed via two complementary approaches: control methods that actively manage the interaction between multiple components (or sub-systems) of a subsystem and, excess design margins that ensure system-level metrics are achievable in the presence of unfavorable interactions. Advanced control design techniques can be useful in reducing excessive design margins (over-design) to either increase system performance or reduce its cost.
In electronic actuations systems used to manipulate mechanical systems such as variable geometry of a gas turbine engine, HVAC systems, and elevator systems, it becomes important to manage the amount of power being drawn at any given time such that power supplies and power delivery system are not over drawn. In order to handle this, either the power system must be sized to handle the worst case power draw of all system drawing at one time or the sub-systems have to be managed together, preventing the sum of the draw from exceeding limits. Since an engine is a highly coupled system, stopping or slowing one sub-system while another is allowed to move at full rate can be problematic therefore coordinated management is required.